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Do not use redirection characters in your shell prompt

(tanelpoder.com)
217 points tanelpoder | 1 comments | 17 Mar 21 14:38 UTC | HN request time: 0.233s | source
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jandrese ◴[17 Mar 21 15:32 UTC] No.26492618[source]▶
This seems to be more of "don't paste garbage into a terminal, especially as root." With a sidenote that it might be safer if your custom application command interpreter didn't use > as the prompt character. I note that Bourne shell defaults to the safer % and # characters for the prompt. The # character for root is especially safe.
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rcarmo ◴[17 Mar 21 15:42 UTC] No.26492739[source]▶
Yeah. About the only relevant bit is that root prompts tend to use # as part of their prompt precisely to inject a comment character in case of mis-quotes/pastes.
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minitoar ◴[17 Mar 21 15:51 UTC] No.26492855[source]▶
Wow I never heard that! I always thought it was just some arbitrary convention I guess.
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nemosaltat ◴[17 Mar 21 18:21 UTC] No.26494966[source]▶
This is why I hang out here!

Obligatory XKCD: https://xkcd.com/1053/

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reaperducer ◴[17 Mar 21 18:43 UTC] No.26495236[source]▶
This is getting to be a tired meme.

While it doesn't apply to shell prompts, there are such things as cultural memory and institutional memory. As a member of a group or society, you are expected to have a certain baseline amount of knowledge of that culture and history.

When I was young, it was considered shameful not to know things. Now the people I work with seem to wear ignorance as a badge of pride. They think that not knowing something means that thing is not worth knowing. As if somehow not knowing something is a good thing.

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1. Thorrez ◴[18 Mar 21 03:19 UTC] No.26499408[source]▶
>As a member of a group or society, you are expected to have a certain baseline amount of knowledge of that culture and history.

How is it possible to become a member of the group or society except by hanging out with existing members and learning from them?

>Now the people I work with seem to wear ignorance as a badge of pride. They think that not knowing something means that thing is not worth knowing. As if somehow not knowing something is a good thing.

That comic is saying almost the opposite of that. The comic says that gaining knowledge is a good thing and should be celebrated.